This past August, I started my first semester of college. As any college student knows, you are required to take a certain amount of general education classes to provide us with a well-rounded education. One of my gen eds this semester was "Foundations of College Writing." One of the many topics of discussion in this class was genres in writing. In the past month, I was required to do a research assignment on anything I chose. My topic was Dreams. The assignment did not stop after the final draft of the paper was submitted. We were then asked to show our research assignment topic in different genres, addressing different audiences with each one. Here's where I thought, what a perfect idea to use an assignment for the Odyssey! Now that you know the background here are some fun facts I discovered while writing my article on why we dream.
Everyone dreams four to six times a
night. We often forget fifty percent of what we dream within the first five
minutes after waking up and ninety percent after ten minutes. Why we
dream has been an unanswered question from the beginning. In the 3rd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian
kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. In the years since,
we haven't paused in our pursuit to understand why we dream. And while we still
do not have any definitive answers, we have some theories.
1. Fulfill Wishes 
Sigmund Freud theorized that everything we remember when we wake up from a dream is a symbolic representation of our unconscious primitive thoughts, urges, and desires.
2. Remembering 
In 2010, researchers found that subjects were better at getting through a complex 3-D maze if they had napped and dreamed of the maze prior to their second attempt. As a result, they were up to 10 times better at it than those who only thought of the maze while awake between attempts.
3. Forgetting
A 1983 neurobiological theory of dreaming called reverse learning holds that while sleeping, the neocortex reviews these neural connections and gets rid of the unnecessary ones. Without this unlearning process, which results in dreams, the brain could be overrun by useless connections and parasitic thoughts could disrupt the necessary thinking that are needed to do while awake.
4. Keep our Brains Working 
The continual activation theory proposes that dreams result
from the brain’s need to constantly consolidate and create long-term memories
in order to function properly.
5. Rehearsing
Whether it is an anxiety filled night of being chased through the woods by a bear or fighting off a ninja in a dark alley these dreams allow the practice of the fight or flight instincts and keep them sharp and dependable in case ever needed in real life.
6. Help Deal
Some researchers theorize that one purpose of dreaming is to take the edge off painful experiences to allow for psychological healing. Reviewing traumatic events in dreams with less mental stress may grant a clearer perspective and an enhanced ability to process them in psychologically healthy ways.
7. Solve Problems
Unconstrained by reality and the rules of conventional logic, in dreams, the mind can create limitless scenarios to help grasp problems and formulate solutions that people may not consider while awake.
These are just a few of the more prominent theories. As technology increases our capability for understanding the brain, it is possible that one day we will discover the definitive reason for why we dream.
